Introducing the Accelerator Nodes – the Latest Additions to the Dell PowerScale Family
Thu, 20 Jan 2022 14:45:39 -0000
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The Dell PowerScale family announced a recent addition with the latest release of accelerator nodes. Accelerator nodes contribute additional CPU, memory, and network bandwidth to a cluster that already has adequate storage resources.
The PowerScale accelerator nodes include the PowerScale P100 performance accelerator and the PowerScale B100 backup accelerator. Both the P100 and B100 are based on 1U PowerEdge R640 servers and can be part of a PowerScale cluster that is powered by OneFS 9.3 or later. The accelerator nodes contain boot media only and are optimized for CPU/memory configurations. A single P100 or B100 node can be added to a cluster. Expansion is through single node increments.
PowerScale all-flash and all-NVMe storage deliver the necessary performance to meet demanding workloads. If additional capabilities are required, new nodes can be non-disruptively added to the cluster, to provide both performance and capacity. There may be specialized compute-bound workloads that require extra performance but don’t need any additional capacity. These types of workloads may benefit by adding the PowerScale P100 performance accelerator node to the cluster. The accelerator node contributes CPU, memory, and network bandwidth capabilities to the cluster. This accelerated storage solution delivers incremental performance at a lower cost. Let’s look at each in detail.
A PowerScale P100 Performance Accelerator node adds performance to the workflows on a PowerScale cluster that is composed of CPU-bound nodes. The P100 provides a dedicated cache, separate from the cluster. Adding CPU to the cluster will improve performance where there are read/re-read intensive workloads. The P100 also provides additional network bandwidth to a cluster through the additional front-end ports.
With rapid data growth, organizations are challenged by shrinking backup windows that impact business productivity and the ability to meet IT requirements for tape backup, and compliance archiving. In such an environment, providing fast, efficient, and reliable data protection is essential. Given the 24x7 nature of the business, a high-performance backup solution delivers the performance and scale to address the SLAs of the business. Adding one or more PowerScale B100 backup accelerator nodes to a PowerScale cluster can reduce risk while addressing backup protection needs.
A PowerScale B100 Backup Accelerator enables backing up a PowerScale cluster using a two-way NDMP protocol. The B100 is delivered in a cost-effective form factor to address the SLA targets and tape backup needs of a wide variety of workloads. Each node includes Fibre Channel ports that can connect directly to a tape subsystem or a Storage Area Network (SAN). The B100 can benefit backup operations as it reduces overhead on the cluster, by going through the Fibre Channel ports directly, thereby separating front-end and NDMP traffic.
The PowerScale P100 and B100 nodes can be monitored using the same tools available today, including the OneFS web administration interface, the OneFS command-line interface, Dell DataIQ, and InsightIQ.
In a world where unstructured data is growing rapidly and taking over the data center, organizations need an enterprise storage solution that provides the flexibility to address the additional performance needs of certain workloads, and that meets the organization’s overall data protection requirements.
The following information provides the technical specifications and best practice design considerations of the PowerScale Accelerator nodes:
- PowerScale Accelerator Nodes Specification Sheet
- PowerScale: NDMP Technical Overview and Design Considerations
- PowerScale: Accelerator Nodes Overview and General Best Practices
Author: Cris Banson